The Citizen

The tragic New Years day accident on Table Mountain, that took the lives of Ian Slatem and Chinese tourist Manyee Chu, was initially misreported as an 'abseiling' accident and the deceased woman as a 'Japanese man'. Numerous media organisations described how a 'local guide' and 'Japanese couple' had all 'fallen while abseiling', with two of them 'dangling from ropes', while the third had (miraculously) survived by 'falling onto a small ledge'.

In fact it was a rock-climbing accident and it was only Slatem that fell, with Chinese tourist Manyee Chu killed instantly by a rock apparently dislodged by Slatem, leaving the third woman on the ledge, exactly where she had been before the accident. Photographs of the third woman administering CPR to Manyee Chu were described on social media as part of a rescue that had most likely not even started. And the surviving Chinese tourist was reported to have been 'taken to a local hospital' when in fact she had refused medical treatment and returned to the guest house in which she was staying.

How did the media ALL get it so wrong?

The next morning, News24.com, quoted Wilderness Search and Rescue (WSAR) spokesperson Johann Marais saying: "They were abseiling and were each tied to the rope and all three of them fell the (full) length of the safety rope ... There was no more rope."

News24

That comment prompted me, the writer, to speculate on the cause of the accident on Facebook, which Andre van Schalkwyk, claiming to be the WSAR 'Field Manager' of the rescue, described rather threateningly, as 'complete crap'. He went on to say: "I was the Field Manager on this incident and therefore am fully aware of exactly what occured." If he did indeed know "exactly what occured", why had WSAR reported the incident as an 'abseiling' accident?

I removed the post in anticipation of the correction, promised by Van Schalkwyk ... which never came. So I started to investigate the accident myself, for Weekend Argus. Ironically, it all leads back to Van Schalkwyk himself.

The same day as that News24 report, Africa News Network 7 featured WSAR spokesman, Johann Marais, describing the accident as an 'abseiling accident', to the ANN7 presenter. To his credit, Marais did preface his comments with "Well, we don't exactly know what happened to them", but then went on to say "... all we can tell you is that they were abseiling against Table Mountain and something must have happened which caused the three of them to all fall ... causing injuries to two of them, which was fatal, whereas the third person survived the fall", as if those were all established facts.

When confronted with this, Marais claims the report "must have been edited" and said WSAR is "contemplating filing a complaint with the Press Ombudsperson" because "the media quoted me and put their own information in between, so that it looks like it's all mine, but it's not all mine".

News24, Eye Witness News (EWN), IOL, The Citizen and SABC all consistently 'misreported' those 'facts', quoting Johann Marais of WSAR. Only Times Live appear to have refrained from relying on WSAR, so that report by Dave Chambers was not as jaw-dropping.

IOL and eNCA also quoted SAN Parks regional spokesperson Merle Collins, repeating the same misinformation, which she confirms came directly from WSAR. Collins confirmed that SAN Parks have revised their communication protocols, as a result of the misinformation.

Last week, Marais admitted that the paramedic who attended to Manyee Chu had mistaken her for a man, but he declined to identify the paramedic. Marais also said that at the time of the accident he was 400km out of town and that his information had came from Andre van Schalkwyk (via his "designated messenger"), who led the Mountain Club of South Africa (MCSA) technical team, to retrieve the bodies from the mountain.

The WSAR website still (incorrectly) claims "Three climbers fall on Arrow Final route, one survivor" and points readers to the News24 report.